


you look like yourself but you're somebody else

by prydon



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Hurt and Very Little Comfort, Juno is also having a bad time bc Nureyev is having a bad time but refuses to talk abt it, Nureyev is having a bad time, Other, Spoilers for s3 ep17: Juno Steel and the Heart of it All (Pt 1)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26758000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prydon/pseuds/prydon
Summary: Nureyev is…Nureyev. He’s helpful, personable, and fulfills his duties perfectly- both as a crewmember and as a boyfriend. He’s always there when Juno needs him, implacable as a stone wall. Juno loves him, and feels eternally grateful for the second chance he’s been given with him. He doesn’t take it for granted, not even for a moment.Something still feels wrong, though, and it’s tearing him apart that he doesn’t know what.--An exploration of Juno's (potential) thoughts and feelings leading up to and during the beginning of the Curemother heist.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 18
Kudos: 72





	you look like yourself but you're somebody else

**Author's Note:**

> I sat bolt upright at 5:30 in the morning the day after this episode came out for patrons, wrote down an outline and the first two pages of this story, and then went straight back to sleep. So. That's what the Penumbra Podcast is doing to me right now.
> 
> Title from "You're Somebody Else" by Flora Cash which sure is a song that makes me tear up if I listen to it for too long :')
> 
> CWs for brief reference to child abuse and depression, some very brief/non-explicit sexy talk, self doubt, some relationship conflict, and both Juno and Nureyev just kinda having a bad brain time

Every time Juno remembers that he can now call Nureyev his “boyfriend”, his chest fills with something infuriatingly akin to butterflies. He feels like a high schooler who just found out his crush likes him back, and it’s exhilarating in an embarrassing sort of way.

Juno is forty years old, and he has been in plenty of relationships. With Nureyev, however, everything they do feels like it’s for the first time. The first time they kiss after getting back together, the first time Nureyev calls Juno “dear”, the first time they sleep together- actually _sleep,_ side by side in the same bed- all feel as daunting and exciting as though Juno has never experienced them before with another person. As though he hasn’t already experienced them all _with_ _Nureyev._

Rita’s support of their relationship is both rather disconcerting and extremely comforting, too. She’s been cagey around Juno’s partners in the past, and she even was around Nureyev at first, but recently she’s entirely warmed to him. Every time Juno talks about him, her face lights up like she’s watching one of her favorite romance streams. He knows he doesn’t need her approval, but it feels good to have it.

Then there’s a crash landing, a brief stay on a deserted island, and a robot heist, and everything shifts ever so slightly.

The change isn’t immediate. It isn’t tangible. It takes several weeks for Juno to even notice it, and once he does he’s still not entirely sure he hasn’t just imagined it.

On one particular day Juno has been sitting in the lounge for twenty minutes, scrolling through his comms as he tries to figure out the new features Rita implemented for him, when something loudly thuds to floor next to him and he nearly jumps out of his own skin.

“Oh, apologies, Juno. My book slipped out of my hands.”

Juno blinks. Nureyev is currently uncurling himself from where he was sitting on the other side of the sofa and reaching down to pick a hardcover book up off the rug.

Juno realizes he had forgotten the man was even there until just now.

Juno never forgets Nureyev. How could he? When he first boarded the Carte Blanche, he felt the man’s presence like an old wound. As time passed, that feeling evolved into something much softer. It became like warm sun on his skin, or a sweet scent in the air. It lit up every room that they were in together.

Lately, though, the man has been fading into the background.

He’ll be quiet for long periods of time, but it isn’t a companionable silence. It isn’t necessarily tense or loaded, either, it’s just…empty. So empty that Juno and the others will occasionally forget he’s even there until he pitches in with a bad joke or the answer to a question.

Juno can’t imagine that it’s intentional- why would it be? What reason would Nureyev have to not be perceived by his own crew, his own family? Nonetheless, it makes Juno nervous. He knows Nureyev well enough to know how much control the man has over his perception. If he’s going unnoticed, it must be by choice. Right?

But _why?_

Juno can’t find the answer to that question, so he pushes aside all his detective’s instincts and tries to ignore it.

Juno is washing the dishes when Nureyev comes up behind him, walking loudly enough that Juno will hear his approach, and kisses him on the cheek.

“Good afternoon, love,” he says.

 _Love._ Juno still hasn’t gotten used to hearing that one. Every time Nureyev uses it, it feels like a declaration. He’s letting the entire world know that the two of them are together, that Juno is his, and it makes Juno’s heart do annoying things in his chest.

“Afternoon,” Juno mumbles back. “Where’ve you been?”

“Memorizing the floorplans for tomorrow in my room. I’m just taking a break now.”

That’s most of what Nureyev does lately, Juno has noticed. The man barely ever even rests. Half the time that he sleeps over in Juno’s room, Juno wakes up past midnight to use the bathroom and finds him already up, poring over some document or another using his comms as a flashlight.

He knows that Nureyev is a hard worker, and incredibly thorough. That comes as no surprise. It’s likely the only way he’s lasted as long as he has as a thief. When Juno sees him working on his memorization lately, however, there’s always a hint of desperation to it. Of fear, even. It’s like he’s terrified that if he doesn’t get everything exactly right…what? What does he think will happen?

He remembers the look on Nureyev’s face in Zolotovna’s ballroom, when Juno had told him he missed a camera. He’d looked like the world was ending.

The same question appears a second time: _Why?_

“You missed lunch. Want me to bring you something?” Juno asks instead.

“Oh, no need to go out of your way. I have nutrient bars in my room.”

Juno wants to argue that the bars are a poor substitute for actual food, but decides not to. Nerves are running high the closer they get to the Curemother, and he doesn’t want to hound Nureyev any more than necessary. He’s likely stressed enough already without Juno mothering him. “Oh. Okay.”

Nureyev smiles. “You’re cute when you’re worried about me, dear,” he says. “I assure you there’s no need, though. I’d just like to memorize one more plan and then I promise I’ll be done for the day.”

“Mm. If you say so.”

“I do say so.” The thief leans down and kisses him lightly.

_“Awwww!”_

Nureyev’s eyes flicker up at the interjection. “…It seems we have ourselves a voyeuse.”

Juno scowls. “Rita!”

“It’s not my fault,” Rita says, crossing her arms. “You’re the ones who are kissing right in the middle of the kitchen. If you didn’t want me to see, you shoulda gone back to your rooms.”

“You could’ve averted your eyes, or something-”

“Oh, let her be, Juno,” Nureyev says airily. “Can you blame her for showing appreciation for true love?”

Juno scoffs. “Yeah, sure…”

 _True love._ He tries not to think about that, and how casually Nureyev had said something that carries so much weight.

Juno goes to Nureyev’s door two hours later, carrying a cup of one of Nureyev’s weird exotic teas and some snacks. He trusts Nureyev, but he doesn’t trust him enough to believe him when he says he’s going to stop working. Sometimes, intervention is necessary- Rita taught him that, during the many times she’d intervened for his own sake.

Nureyev calls out to him to come inside. He steps through the door, and very nearly trips over a stray pair of heels as he does.

“Nureyev…” he moans. “One of these days I’m gonna end up with a snapped neck from this place.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Nureyev says, but he doesn’t sound it. He’s sitting on his bed with his legs crossed, chewing on a pen, papers spread out all around him. They’re covered in pen marks, there are sticky notes stuck haphazardly to them, and if there’s any rhyme or reason to how they’re arranged, it is a mystery to everyone but Nureyev.

The rest of his room is maintained in a similar fashion: total disarray, fathomable and tolerable to only Nureyev himself.

“Would it kill you to at least use a hamper?” Juno murmurs, kicking aside a pair of pants as he heads to the bed.

His tone is light, but there is a reason that the two of them usually end up in Juno’s room for their talks and nighttime escapades. Nureyev’s is not only near-impossible to navigate and borderline dangerous, but looking at it sets Juno on edge and makes his anxiety rear its ugly head.

As a child, Juno was neat by necessity. He didn’t want to give Ma any more excuses to yell at him or Ben, not when one sock in the wrong place could set off a bad mood that’d last the whole day.

As he got older and depression sunk its claws into him, he slowly lost that neatness. Messes still made him nervous, but he left them anyway, because calming his own nerves didn’t seem worth what felt like the near monumental effort of regularly cleaning and doing laundry.

In his worst weeks, his apartment had been in total disarray, a black hole of dirty clothes and unwashed dishes and empty bottles of alcohol. Seeing a mess like this takes him back to those times when he was so sick and numb that he didn’t he couldn’t even manage to take care of himself, let alone his living space.

He knows this is different. Probably. Nureyev seems comfortable in his mess, not like he’s wallowing in it. Still, Juno can’t help but hope he’ll get the opportunity to do some spring cleaning in here someday.

He sits down on the edge of the bed, trying not to disrupt any of the papers sprawled across it. “You said just one more plan, Nureyev.”

“Yes, yes, well, this one is proving tricky,” Nureyev says.

His eyes are bloodshot beneath his glasses, and still fixed on the schematics in front of him. They’re covered in notes, certain words circled and underlined multiple times, as though if he doesn’t highlight them a dozen different ways they’ll definitely leave his mind.

The others on the crew think Nureyev’s skill in memorization is an innate one, but Juno knows better. He knows Nureyev puts an ungodly level of effort into making his actions appear effortless.

Juno gently rests a hand on his arm, and feels it tense slightly beneath his grasp. “Come on. I made you tea. Will you at least drink it?”

Nureyev hesitates for a moment. His face twitches slightly, as though sliding a mask back into place, and then he smiles. “Of course. You’re too good to me, darling.”

“Only as good as you deserve,” Juno mumbles. “You need to relax a little, okay? You’re gonna give yourself an aneurysm.”

Another twitch, though it vanishes instantly, replaced by a sly expression. “I can think of several ways I’d love to relax tonight…”

Juno feels his cheeks warm. “That right?”

“Certainly. Let’s meet in your room after dinner, shall we?”

They do meet after dinner. Juno opens the door to his quarters to find Nureyev sprawled on the bed, wearing a velvet dressing gown and an impish smile. He’s even redone his makeup in red and gold, with glitter painted on his eyelids.

Juno snorts. “You know, you really don’t have to go through all the trouble.” Nureyev’s beauty is overwhelming enough when he’s barefaced and wearing one of Juno’s ripped up old tees, let alone when he’s like this.

“Oh, but I want to. For you, my love.” The thief slips off the bed and pads over to him, throwing his arms around Juno’s neck. “A king must look good for his queen, mustn’t he?”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

“Besides, doing myself up like this is the only way I can hope to match such a captivating beauty as yours, my goddess.” He strokes Juno’s cheek. “If I did anything less for you, I think I would drown in my own shame.”

Juno is no stranger to Nureyev’s tendency to wax poetic, and usually he finds it very endearing, if a little ridiculous. Right now, though, something about his words is giving Juno pause. It’s all too…

He searches for the right word for a long moment, until it appears in his mind:

_Performative._

Nureyev is smiling down at him, his eyes glittering, but there’s something else behind them. An exhaustion, maybe, or nervousness, that’s being carefully hidden behind a performance of joyful seduction.

“Stop it,” Juno says suddenly.

“Stop…what, dear?”

“I don’t know. Acting like Ransom, or whoever.”

A hurt look crosses Nureyev’s face. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You don’t have to pretend around me, all right? You can just be…you, Nureyev.”

“I am being me. This is me, Juno.”

Juno can’t tell if he’s intentionally lying or if he genuinely believes that, but either way, he’s sure it isn’t true. He’s met Rex Glass, Duke Rose, and Peter Ransom. He’s also met Peter Nureyev. Whoever Nureyev is being now, it feels closer to the former three than the latter.

During their time with the Aurinko family, he’s watched the way Nureyev slips into an alias. In preparation for a job during which he’d be playing the role of a fashion designer, he spent hours watching comms videos of interviews with famous designers, picking up on their mannerisms and lingo.

When it came time for him to act the part, it was almost uncanny how easily he was able to mimic everything down to the body language of the designers he’d watched. There were moments where Juno was certain that if he hadn’t known Nureyev as intimately as he did, he could have believed the performance was real. There were always tiny signs, though- a stiffness to his smile, a certain practiced lilt to his voice- that reminded Juno that it was just a role he’d studied.

That very same stiffness to his smile and lilt to his voice has been present aboard the Carte Blanche the past few weeks.

Juno passed it off as a side effect of Nureyev playing Ransom, at first. He wants Nureyev to feel comfortable enough to drop the ruse around their crewmates, but he can’t expect that from him. They may be a family, but Nureyev still has an identity to protect, and it’s in his nature to play a role, anyway. It doesn’t have to mean anything…untoward.

What really scares Juno, though, is that Nureyev has been keeping up the act when they’re alone.

And what _is_ ‘the act’, anyway? If he’s pretending to be someone, who is it?

“Juno…love, you’re frightening me,” Nureyev says. “What’s the matter? Have I done something wrong?”

Where the terms of endearment once gave him butterflies, they now twist something inside of Juno. Suddenly, they feel too practiced. They remind him of the way Duke called him “dearest”, or the way the fashion designer had called Rita- who was posing as Nureyev’s sibling and business partner- “darling sister”. Just a term picked up from a stream to create an illusion of a relationship where there wasn’t one.

Juno swallows. “I…I don’t know.”

_Mistah Ransom seems like a good boyfriend, Mistah Steel. I can tell he really loves you. I’m glad you’ve got someone who’s treating you right._

That’s what Rita said to him yesterday in passing, after seeing Nureyev talk him down from the tail end of a panic attack.

Is he a good boyfriend, though?

Or is he just good at playing the role of one?

Juno wants to shut off his brain. It’s not like this would be the first time he’s grossly misinterpreted something Nureyev’s done or said. He may pride himself on his skills as a detective, but he also knows that past experiences color his ability to make fair judgements today, especially when it comes to relationships. He’s not going to let his trauma ruin this for him. Not a second time.

Juno shakes himself slightly. “No. No, you’re fine. I’m sorry. I’m just…in my own head. I love you, Nureyev.”

Nureyev’s smile softens, and suddenly it feels real again. He’s certain it really is Peter Nureyev looking at him with those dark eyes, and it’s Peter Nureyev who kisses him and says, “I love you too, Juno.”

The weeks before their last heist pass too quickly and too slowly at once.

Everything goes well- almost alarmingly so.

Rita shows him all her favorite streams, and he only complains about half the time. Jet invites him to join in his morning meditation and he agrees, even taking a liking to it. Buddy begrudgingly gives him more advice about how best to get his thoughts and feelings out, and he listens to her. Vespa still argues with him often, but he can feel a fondness behind her words, and one day she even pulls him aside and offers him a lesson in knife throwing.

And Nureyev is…Nureyev. He’s helpful, personable, and fulfills his duties perfectly- both as a crewmember and as a boyfriend. He’s always there when Juno needs him, implacable as a stone wall. Juno loves him, and feels eternally grateful for the second chance he’s been given with him. He doesn’t take it for granted, not even for a moment.

Something still feels wrong, though, and it’s tearing him apart that he doesn’t know what.

Some days he feels so close to Nureyev, and others he feels like there’s a door shut between them, one chained and covered in so many padlocks that Juno doesn’t have any idea how to go about opening it. The more time passes, the more distant Nureyev becomes. If Juno didn’t know better, he’d think he was intentionally being pushed away.

It isn’t just him, though. Nureyev maintains the same cordial distance with the others, too. Juno isn’t certain if that makes him feel better or much, much worse. He doesn’t know what to make of any of it.

He gets very close to confronting him about it again several times, but each time he stops himself, berates himself. Nureyev has been nothing but effusively sweet and kind to him since his apology. He’s spent months helping Juno along in his recovery, comforting him after nightmares, and tackling him out of the way of blaster fire during heists.

How could Juno repay him for that with distrust?

Nureyev, for whatever reason, chose to trust Juno from day one. At the time, that terrified Juno. Now, he feels flattered by and immensely grateful for it.

The least he can do is return the favor.

“I was thinking about…after this,” Juno says one night.

It’s late, and he’s half-asleep already, but Nureyev is still up studying. He’s been trying to stay awake with him, despite Nureyev’s insistence that he should sleep. _Only if you do,_ Juno had replied.

Nureyev is good at hiding it, but his weariness is becoming more and more blatant every day. Juno has the immense privilege of being the only one who gets to see the man without makeup, which means he’s also the only one who sees just how dark the bruises under his eyes have become, and just how drawn and sallow his skin looks.

“Mm?” Nureyev says distractedly, still staring down at the astrology book he’s been reading to prepare for his next role.

“I mean…all those cities and resorts you told me we were going to see if I came with you. After Vespa and Buddy retire…I’d like to finally see them. Just you and me. It’s about time I let you take me on that adventure.”

“Mm.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

Nureyev mops his hair out of his eyes and then pushes up his glasses to rub them. “Sorry, dear. I’m a bit distracted at the moment.”

Juno furrows his brow. “Babe, you look like you’re about to collapse. Go to sleep.”

“I just need to finish this chapter, and then I’ll-”

Juno reaches out and closes the book, not giving him the chance to even mark his place. “The book will still be here tomorrow, Nureyev. You, on the other hand, might not be if you keep this up.”

Nureyev looks genuinely angry for a moment, and Juno is certain he’s going to end up on the other end of a biting retort, but instead the thief lets out a sigh of resignation. “Very well.”

He unceremoniously shoves his books and papers off the bed onto the floor- Juno has to hold back his own retort at that- and then falls onto the covers with a thump.

Juno gently takes off his glasses for him, setting them on the bedside table. He doesn’t want Nureyev to fall asleep thinking about work, so he returns to the previous, more pleasant topic. “Do you still remember them, then? All the places you planned for us to go?”

“Of course,” Nureyev murmurs.

Juno smiles and reaches out to put a hand on Nureyev’s face, rubbing gentle circles on his cheekbone and trying not to think too much about how drained the man looks compared to only a few months ago. “I can’t wait to see them. I couldn’t have asked for a better tour guide.”

“I’ve not been your tour guide, yet, love. For all you know, I could be awful.”

“Oh, as if.” Juno chuckles. “God, it’s…so close. That future. That’s exciting, right?”

“Mm. Yes, it is. It’s what I’ve always wanted, after all. An adventure across the galaxy with Juno Steel.”

He’s smiling, but his voice sounds strangely hollow, and suddenly Juno feels an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. He’s already had this conversation with Nureyev, hasn’t he? Nureyev gave the same responses-

No. Nureyev’s had this conversation with _him._ He gave the same responses back then that Nureyev’s giving now. He delivered the same hollow platitudes, and then…

And then he left in the middle of the night without a word.

Nureyev isn’t going to leave, obviously. Why would he? Juno squeezes his eye shut, reminding himself that not everyone is as screwed up as he is. If Nureyev’s responses aren’t as enthusiastic as they usually are, it’s only because he’s exhausted.

Juno pulls him close, burying his face in the man’s silky hair. If there are a few more grey strands in it than there were the last time he saw it this close up, he isn’t going to mention it. After all, he rather likes them, and he knows Nureyev will dye them the moment he realizes they’re there.

“Night, Nureyev.”

“Goodnight, love.”

He is woken a couple of hours later by a stirring against his chest, and feigns sleep as Nureyev carefully extracts himself from his arms and goes back to work.

Juno can feel Nureyev’s nerves like an electrical current in the air during the days leading up to the theft of the Curemother. On the heist’s eve, when they’ve finished all preparations, they have one last family stream night. Buddy declares that it’s to help everyone unwind before the big day, and the others all agree it isn’t a bad idea- including Nureyev.

As they sit side by side on the sofa, however, Juno doesn’t feel Nureyev’s body lose tension even once. He keeps waiting for the man to relax, to sink into his side or onto his lap like he usually does, but he stays bolt upright, fixed on the stream. He doesn’t seem to be processing it, however. His eyes are glassy and he doesn’t laugh at any of the jokes or gasp at any of the reveals. Whatever he’s thinking about, it isn’t the dramatic vampire swordfight happening on the screen.

After the stream is over and the others are heading to bed, Juno touches Nureyev’s hand. “Wanna sleep in my room tonight?”

Nureyev shoots down the offer of comfort as easily as one might wave away a fly. “No thank you, love. I think I’d like to look over everything one more time in my room.”

“I can sleep in yours, then, if you like,” Juno says. He just wants to be there. He just wants to help soften the anxiety he knows Nureyev is feeling about the task ahead, even if only by being present. God knows, Nureyev and Rita have done the same for him too many times in the past year.

He knows before Nureyev even speaks what the answer will be, however, from the ever-so-slightly-too-sweet smile the man gives him. “No, no. I know how nervous being in my room makes you, Juno. I wouldn’t do that to you. The offer is much appreciated, though. Goodnight.”

Juno waits for something- a hug, or a kiss, or any of the things he’s come to expect alongside a _Goodnight_ from Peter Nureyev. Instead, the man just squeezes his hand and vanishes down the hallway, leaving Juno’s chest aching for reasons he can’t define.

When they get into the Ruby 7 on the way to the Curemother, Nureyev sits down next to Rita instead of insisting they rearrange themselves so they can both sit next to Juno. Juno forces himself not to think anything of it.

He’s near silent the entire way to the facility. Juno forces himself not to think anything of that, too. He forces himself not to remember the Nureyev he’d first met, who couldn’t shut up for five seconds even when they were hiding in a closet from a howling monster. The Nureyev who babbled about anything and everything when he got nervous.

He forces himself not to think about what a _quiet_ Peter Nureyev means.

The heist goes well, all things considered: they get inside without blowing up, and they reach the domes without issue. All they need to do is avoid the drones and use the key on the correct dome.

And then:

“Darlings, I’m afraid we have a situation.”

Juno isn’t surprised when Nureyev admits to having taken the schematic to study it during the night. He’s never been able to sleep the night before a big heist- he often isn’t able to sleep even on regular nights. Juno can’t count the number of times he’s checked in on him at dead hours in the morning, only to find him hunched over his cluttered desk with red-rimmed eyes, feverishly going over floorplans for the fourth or fifth time.

He sees the mortified expression on Nureyev’s face and his heart aches with sympathy. He knows screwing up like this is his worst nightmare, and he immediately jumps to his defense when Vespa goes after him.

“We were all nervous this morning! It must’ve slipped his mind!”

“When has anything ever slipped his mind?!” Vespa spits back.

Juno bites his lip.

He sees Nureyev in Zolotovna’s ballroom, about to steal the globe in plain view of a camera hidden only by an obviously fake plant. He sees Nureyev forgetting to turn off the coffee maker after using it, screwing up the same passcode three times in a row when Juno is helping him study, curled up in a ball on Juno’s bed at midnight tearfully stammering something semi-coherent about how _I’m not good enough anymore, I’m losing my touch-_

“Plenty of times!” he says, but he doesn’t elaborate. He can’t elaborate. Nureyev is embarrassed enough by his mess ups when it’s just Juno who knows about them, let alone the whole crew. “Maybe if you didn’t turn every goddamn mistake into the trial of the century, someone would actually let you in on them!”

One thing he does know for sure is that he trusts Peter Nureyev.

When Nureyev says he remembers the front left dome being the correct one, Juno knows he must be right. He has to be. Nureyev has been forgetful lately, but if he says he remembers it, then he remembers it.

“Ransom, obviously,” he says without so much as a second of hesitation, when Buddy asks him whose memory he believes is correct.

The next few minutes pass in a flurry of adrenaline. There are drones that look like giant mosquitos, the threat of EMPs at every moment, and the big guy pressed against the front left dome and singing as though their lives depend on it- which they do.

It isn’t working.

The drones get closer and closer to Jet, and the key isn’t working.

Then Buddy says it.

“Jet, Vespa is correct! You’re using the Key on the wrong dome! Run to the back right, now!”

Juno’s heart drops to the bottom of his chest before he even fully processes the implications of what she’s saying.

He sees a look of shock and concern cross Jet’s usually stony face before he starts running to the other dome. He sees Vespa’s face twist into a snarl, her eyes gleaming as they come to rest upon Nureyev like an executioner upon a death row inmate.

“You murdering, backstabbing cheat!”

He’s looking at Nureyev now, too, and it is as though the universe has slowed to a halt around him. He is staring at the man he’s been in love with for years, been in a relationship with for months, and suddenly it’s like he’s seeing a stranger.

“Ransom…what?” he says, numb from shock.

Nureyev’s eyes are wide and terrified, sweat glistening on his face, which is now visibly red even under all of his makeup. “I didn’t…I read those schematics over and over again…I could swear…”

Vespa is pulling out her knife and moving towards him. She’s going to kill him, and Buddy isn’t telling her not to. Juno isn’t either. He’s too confused to move or even speak. He wants to step between her and Nureyev, or grab Nureyev and yell at him until he explains how this is all some elaborate misunderstanding, but he can’t do anything but stand there and stare.

When Nureyev speaks again, it’s in a whisper directed only at him. “Juno…please don’t look at me that way. Not you.”

There’s a tremor in his voice that pierces Juno’s heart like a jagged piece of glass. A part of him wants to reach out and pull the man into his arms, to hug him until he never looks that sad again. Another part, the part that was a detective for decades, whispers: _He lied, he lied, he lied-_

Even the detective part is stuck on one thing, however. That very same question, a third time.

 _“Why?”_ he says softly.

Every crime needs a motive. Even if he shoves aside every atom of himself that is in love with Nureyev so that he can attempt to judge the situation rationally, Juno can’t see one here. He’s not angry. He doesn’t even feel betrayed, really, not yet. He’s just confused. Confused and terrified.

Drones start to rain from the sky, proof that the back right dome is the correct one. Nureyev is standing stock still, watching Jet with worried eyes.

Jet, the man Juno knows Nureyev has seen as a hero since he was a teenager, and who he’s been desperate to impress during their time on the Carte Blanche. Jet, the man that Nureyev _can’t_ have just attempted to murder.

Nureyev flinches and looks mortified when Jet’s shoulder is skewered by a drone. Juno hates himself for the twinge of relief he feels upon witnessing that reaction. Of course Nureyev reacted that way. How else would he have?

When Vespa finally has a spare moment to confront Nureyev, she does so instantly. Her voice is filled with quiet, murderous rage. “Looks like your luck’s run out, thief. Time to pay.”

Juno has sparred with Nureyev in the past, has seen him cut down countless guards and enemies with practiced skill. He knows the man’s reflexes. He knows that if he’d really wanted to block Vespa’s knife, dodge away from it, or even to stab her first, he likely could have. Yet he stays stock still as she puts the blade to his throat, pressing it against the fragile skin of his neck.

There is nothing calculating in Nureyev’s expression as his life is threatened, only Juno’s own confusion and fear mirrored back at him, mixed with a bone deep guilt and something else- is it resignation?

Juno realizes that he doesn’t care what Nureyev did or didn’t do. He can’t watch the love of his life die in front of him.

He moves to intervene when Buddy’s voice cuts through the comms again. “Not just yet, Vespa. There is some…evidence here that suggests Pete was not lying. He’s attached a note to the schematics…and it’s currently upside-down.”

Juno’s eye widens. Nureyev’s do too, and Vespa slowly lowers the knife.

“It’s…what?” Juno feels the relief flood through him like a warm beverage, and suddenly he’s laughing. His laughter is louder than it should be, in the hopes that maybe if he laughs hard enough everyone else will laugh too and they can all forget about this. “You were reading the goddamn schematics upside down, Ransom? Hell, I know you get nervous before a big job, but this is another level.”

Nureyev looks like he’s going to be sick. He crosses his arms, curling in on himself. The sweat on his face is making his makeup run, and there’s a tremor to his hands where they clutch his sides. “…Yes. Nerves. I must have studied them upside-down.”

When he says it, he doesn’t sound like a man whose innocence has just been proven. He sounds like he’s being put on trial again, just for a different crime.

“I am so sorry,” he continues weakly. “The mistake I’ve made…is unforgivable. I will do everything in my power to make it up to you.”

The shame in his voice is unmistakable. In a normal situation, Juno would hate to see him this way, would pull him into his arms and hold him tight- in this one, however, he just feels more relief run through him. Some part of that relief grows claws and turns on him, hissing: _How could you doubt him? You love him. You trust him. How could ever think, even for a moment, that he was capable of something like that?_

“And Captain?” Nureyev is saying.

“Yes, Pete?”

“Apologies for the state of my room. Another symptom of…well, nerves, I suppose.”

Everything happens at once, after that: Jet escapes the blast radius, injured shoulder streaming blood. Vespa leaps from the car and runs over to his side to tend to him. He’s midway through a sentence when an EMP explodes through the air, making Juno’s ears ring and his bones rattle.

And then…

Silence on the other side of the comms, from Buddy.

Everything happens all at once, so much so that Juno doesn’t even have the time to consider one terrifying fact: when Nureyev said that misreading the plan and not cleaning his room were simply symptoms of nerves, Juno did not believe him.

He looks over at the man in the car beside him, whose dark eyes are laced with a million emotions that Juno can’t even begin to puzzle out. He remembers everything Nureyev has ever done for him. He remembers a small, scared boy on New Kinshasa, just trying to survive. Making mistakes, perhaps, but trying so hard to be good.

He laces his fingers with Nureyev’s as the world falls apart around them, and gives him a pointed look. It’s a look that says many things, but most of all: _I don’t believe you, but I trust you. I don’t believe you, but I love you._

_I don’t believe you, but whatever this is, I’m going to help you out of it._

**Author's Note:**

> Hard to be a person who primarily writes fic about what's going on in Nureyev's head when we DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON IN HIS HEAD RN. So many fic I wanna write inspired by the new ep, but can't until we know more about what's going on with him...
> 
> Similarly, this fic doesn't have much of a conclusion because we don't KNOW yet what the conclusion to this storyline will be :"D Maybe I'll write a second chapter of this once we get one, who knows.
> 
> Anyway, you can follow me on tumblr @prydon or twitter @prydonn and smash that kudos button/leave a comment if you too love Peter Nureyev and are stressed as hell rn!!!!


End file.
